Blaze Retro Joystick and Handheld units

[+fdr4prez]

I was searching eBay for some more Jakks plug-n-play joysticks and paddle systems when I stumbled on two listings for a pre-order Blaze Joystick that looks very similar to the Jakks version, and a pre-order for a Blaze Handheld unit.

 

http://blazeretro.com/

 

 

The ebay listings say they are from Australia. If you go to their site and click "read more", they sell through a UK site.

 

Unfortunately, their site says "This product is only available to purchase outside of the US/NA regions"

 

Overall they are more pricey than the older Jakks version, but there are more games included.

 

They have some neat t-shirts, too.

 

Has anyone heard of these guys before?

 

 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

I was searching eBay for some more Jakks plug-n-play joysticks and paddle systems when I stumbled on two listings for a pre-order Blaze Joystick that looks very similar to the Jakks version, and a pre-order for a Blaze Handheld unit.

 

http://blazeretro.com/

 

 

The ebay listings say they are from Australia. If you go to their site and click "read more", they sell through a UK site.

 

Unfortunately, their site says "This product is only available to purchase outside of the US/NA regions"

 

Overall they are more pricey than the older Jakks version, but there are more games included.

 

They have some neat t-shirts, too.

 

Has anyone heard of these guys before?

 

 

 

blaze-joystick.jpg

 

blaze-handheld.jpg

Yeah the portable is something that people preordered quite a while back. I think it was suppose to come out in December of last year, then February, and I think most recently June.

 

It is another example of an Atari product not making the light of day. I wouldn't preorder until it makes it out. The joystick I have no clue.

[Jumpman1981]

 

The joystick I have no clue.

 

The Stick did come out, and from what I've heard it's your standard Plug and Play, nothing spectacular but gets the job done.

[+fdr4prez]

 

The Stick did come out, and from what I've heard it's your standard Plug and Play, nothing spectacular but gets the job done.

 

The site says pre-order and stock will be in August.

 

I am curious on how awkward it would be to use the secondary fire button on top of the stick.

 

Unfortunately they don't want to ship to US/NA region, and the price is kind of high.

[Tanooki]

I don't know if this is coincidence or not, but in the UK blaze was the overriding seller branding name put on some atgames devices such as the SMS/GG combo unit and some earlier of the genesis stuff too. I haven't kept up with it having no reason but it was that many years ago, so maybe it's the same group doing their old shell over some common guts.

 

Just a little proof -- https://segaretro.org/Blaze_Europe

Edited July 14, 2018 by Tanooki

[sflimey]

Just got my Blaze Atari 2600 handheld, powered it on, played a game and then of course broke out the screwdriver. Heres pictures of the internals.

 

 

Has an unexposed micro usb connector. Once I get home I'll hook it up and see what I get.

Edited November 9, 2018 by sflimey

[sflimey]

The USB port is wired up enough to power the device. Attaching it to both a Mac or PC does not show it as a mountable device though.

[foft]

I just got the joystick. Its based on the allwinner F1C100.

 

http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/F1C100/

 

Will have to work out how to load other software... Has anyone here tried yet?

[foft]

Not looking promising for hacking!

 

See the notes on f series here:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Allwinner_SoC_Family

 

Will have to try to find Melis rtos info...

[foft]

Although: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Allwinner-SUNIV-ARM9-Kernel

 

https://github.com/Icenowy/sunxi-jtag

Edited November 17, 2018 by foft

[teller]

I can mount the ATARI handheld on windows 10 while powered with batteries via usb-micro slot. The device is called "ProtectExecuter". The drive is only 60kb big and inside there is a file called "setting.bin". I opened that file with HxD and there is the following text:

d:\apps\

While USB attached on the display there is a text in chinese which means something like "usb not connected...".

setting.bin

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z608gf5g9rmmv6g/setting.bin

Edited December 26, 2018 by teller

[negative1]

It's on Amazon, decent price:

https://www.amazon.com/BLAZE-Atari-Handheld-Konsole-Video-Games/dp/B076BVMSQC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545857332&sr=8-1&keywords=atari+retro+handheld

 

later

-1

[high voltage]

I just bought one, I like it a lot, looks very neat.

[high voltage]

And..I bought this.

 

[SpaceCowboy850]

Yay, finally approved to post!

So I wanted to ask, as it has been really hard to find a good review of this is - how is the dpad and buttons on the Blaze portable? I've held off getting an Atari Flashback Portable, as it sounded like the dpad was seriously screwed up.

 

This has much nicer aesthetics than the Portable, but can't load games, but if the dpad and buttons are good, maybe it is worth it?

Edited February 21, 2019 by SpaceCowboy850

[Draxxon]

I have the Atari Vault Joystick. I havent seen many reviews on it. It's BIG. Its very stiff. Larger than a standard size Atari joystick. the button on top is strange. pushing the entire stick itself down presses the switch, so if you are pressing the stick down while playing, the button on top can't work. Which is a total bummer. The stick itself has a rubbery grip feel to it. I just use it for Atari Vault on PC. It's okay. It functions. Atari Vault on Steam is fun, but I didn't like the stick as much as I thought I would. Its clearly the exact same thing as the plug and play variety, because it has the battery compartment on the bottom of the stick still, and, it doesnt even take batteries, lol.

I'm still thinking about picking up a handheld. I see there is a version with an SD Card as well. So that one if any. Again, I don't see much info on the BLAZE stuff. Maybe I'm in the wrong section? Maybe their stuff sucks? As long as this stuff has been out I thought I could find more reviews.

Which leads me to... I have the Blaze Atari Arcade Mini #2 coming tomorrow. Ive seen a bit of info on the yellow pong unit, as far as the bait and switch with Arcade Pong and A26 pong. Ive seen the incremental dials get swapped with pots and they work a lot better. But, I havent seen anything on the Red one. For me, I like the look of it, and it just needs to go on a shelf with others and look cool. I hear since arcade pong was dropped, they added Warlords and like a dozen other paddle games to the yellow pong unit, and now Warlords is NOT on the Red one, but has been switched with Gravitar. Thats all I know. But I would like to know more, and hear other opinions.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Draxxon

[Draxxon]

So I received the red mini arcade today. Here is what Ive found. 

 

Gravitar replaced Warlords. The side art was also changed to Gravitar.

My first reaction was it feels solid and not cheap, it's larger than I thought it would be, and that's a good thing.

I thought it felt a tad light, but, 4 AA batteries does the trick. It also a has micro USB port for power.

The lit on/off coin slot button is cool, the stick and buttons are REALLY nice. A LOT better than I expected, the D-Pad is good!

The stick is removable, but its screwed in tight, I wasnt sure it was removable until i read the manual, which is also nice, small game descriptions are welcome. I still havent removed the stick. The My Arcade minis have sticks that WANT to unscrew all the time.

The CPO is solid.

 

The screen is just, okay. But its not a deal breaker or anything.

The 4 action buttons are all the "fire" button. and only two of them function in 4 out of 5 games. Only Gravitar allows any of the four to fire. Its beyond idiotic, but not a deal breaker. The top 3 buttons are Reset (menu/home), Select and Start. So far so good.

The games... IDK, they sort-of feel like ports? I dont remember Adventure with these sounds. Or being able to "juggle" 2 items to the next screen causing one to vanish. beating the game sounds and looks different. Centipede and Yars feel okay, The decent joystick actually helps to have a lot of fun playing these versions, whatever they are. Sprintmaster, same thing. I also noticed there are no difficulty or B&W switches, not sure it matters for these 5 games.

 

VERDICT... MEH. If you want to spend 35 bucks on a mini arcade to sit on a shelf with other mini arcades, this will work. It looks sharp. It fits in scale well enough with the My Arcade and Neo Geo Mini type of modern stuff.

 

 

a slightly larger screen, remove the extra buttons, add an SD Card slot for 2600

and 7800 ROMs, maybe some kind of lit marquee to make it a smidge taller,

and this thing would have been something. and its too bad, because like I said,

the joystick and buttons are the stars of the show.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Draxxon